This is absolutely disgusting…
For the second straight day, Capitol Police on Thursday arrested protesters of Gov. Scott Walker who have long defied his administration’s permitting rules during noontime singalong rallies in the statehouse rotunda.
Following Wednesday’s arrest of 22 demonstrators, the numbers in the rotunda for the Thursday singalong appeared to at least double. Roughly 120 people sang, and many others looked on or stood by in support, with the mood of the crowd more electric and defiant than the day before.
Police issued 26 citations Thursday for participating in an event without a permit. Additionally, one person was charged with disorderly conduct, another was charged with resisting arrest and a third person was charged with both disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The demonstrators sang union and civil rights songs such as “Eyes on the Prize” and never stopped, despite the steady stream of arrests.
Here’s a photo (courtesy of the Overpass Light Brigade) of the Capitol Police dragging a woman they had arrested who recently had hip surgery and needed to use crutches but was not allowed to by officers.
What’s truly stunning about the Capitol Police arrests over the past two days is that the same legislators who have allowed firearms in our State Capitol have made it illegal for citizens to gather, sing songs of protest, and exercise their First Amendment rights.
Those are some ass-backwards priorities, but as Charles Pierce noted for Esquire, Walker and his toadies aren’t concerned with public safety or preserving rights; they’re only concerned with not making Walker look bad.
This has nothing to do with public safety. I’ve been in that rotunda. It’s huge. You could bring in Up With People, and there’d still be room for the daily business of selling Wisconsin off wholesale to get done around them. This is about inconveniencing a guy who wants to run for president based on his record of selling Wisconsin off wholesale. This is about video he doesn’t like and people who harsh his mellow. Which happens to be what the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and Article I of the constitution of what once was the state of Wisconsin, are all about, too.
Here’s some video of the Capitol Police arresting the Solidarity Singers for the crime of singing and exercising their first amendment rights in the State Capitol.
This is Wisconsin, not some two-bit tinpot dictatorship, and this kind of thing shouldn’t be happening in our fair state.
For shame.
shame indeed…
This evening, I have the deepest feelings of sadness and anger; sadness for a denial of democracy and anger at a despot, an incompetent and unethical governor, who is attempting to silence “vox popoli.”
It is no wonder Walker is judged to be one of the six worst governors in our country; http://www.citizensforethics.org/worst-governors-in-america/
Worse, are the conscienceless who abuse the disabled obeying a despot’s denial of a basic freedom of speech. Haven’t we seen this movie before, circa 1930’s, in another part of the world? The goons of that sad period were also only “following orders” from their leader.
We must respond with more and louder singers. Call out and I for one will join in song in rejecting the tyranny of a Walker and the blind obedience by his storm troopers.
Duane, I’ll have something about Walker being named one of the six worst governors in America in the morning.
You’re absolutely right that our governor is very clearly trying to silence the collective voice of the citizens who dare to oppose him, and it’s absolutely disgusting that this is happening in our fair state.
So, I guess getting a permit is to much of an obstacle for these crybabies, just like several hundred other people requesting permits?
Maybe you have never been in the Capitol rotunda before, but I have hundreds of times. You can hear a conversation that is taking place on the 3rd floor of the rotunda and hear it on the first floor. So, you can imagine the disruption of all the yelling, screaming and maybe some singing by the Walker haters.
This has nothing to do with the Constitution and silencing the senile old bats. All they had to do was get a permit, even their attorney agreed with, and they could sing to their pacemakers content.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” -FIRST AMMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNTITED STATES
“Every person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right, and no laws shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.” -ARTICLE 1 SECTION 3 OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION OF WISCONSIN
Show me where it says that you need a PERMIT to exercise your RIGHTS of FREE SPEECH or ASSEMBLY in either of those documents and I won’t call you an idiot.
I’m sure Dan is equally concerned about Bulletproof Security’s failure to get a permit up North at the GTAC mining site patrolling areas open to the public, and doing so without a permit. Right, Danny? Of course, the Bulletproof guys haven’t been ticketed for their “illegal” acts.
Your faux-trage is so transparent. The permit rule is arbitrary and was clearly done to stifle dissent, and the fact that the wimps in the Walker Administration are intimidated by noontime singers shows how petty and weak-minded the Walker folks are. And everyone outside of Dan’s right-wing Bubbleworld knows it.
Public protests are an expression of all that is good and Godly — they are the ultimate display of democracy and patriotism against the evils of the establishment, the corruption of the federal government, and the unconstitutionality of decisions handed down by the Supreme Court.*
* … unless said protests are conducted by union workers, liberals and progressives, ethnic minorities, gays, senior citizens, women fighting for their health and privacy rights, or participants in an “occupied” rally, in which case they’re a non-patriotic demonstration of unAmerican, immoral ideas by people who want to destroy society as we know it!
Welcome to the world of Walker’s Wisconsin, where the double-standard is SOP.